


Let Slip the Dogs of War

by rallamajoop



Series: Dogs of War series [1]
Category: Cable and Deadpool
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Evil Overlord, M/M, Warning: Contains Deadpool, dub-con
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-16
Updated: 2012-11-24
Packaged: 2017-11-16 08:52:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 19,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kink-meme request fic spinning out of the canonical alternate universe seen in <i>Cable & Deadpool</i> #15-16. Or, War wasn't telling the whole truth about what happened to the Deadpool of his universe.</p><p>While not explicit, contains references to torture, non-con and assorted other Evil Overlord AU-related staples.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [狗战开始](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1091784) by [mow9986](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mow9986/pseuds/mow9986), [rallamajoop](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rallamajoop/pseuds/rallamajoop)



> Written for a prompt on the [Cable&Deadpool kink meme](http://spam-monster.livejournal.com/1615.html), asking for a continuation of [this ficlet](http://sarkywoman.livejournal.com/52637.html#cutid1) by [](http://sarkywoman.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://sarkywoman.livejournal.com/)**sarkywoman** \- which was in turn inspired by the canonical alternate universe where Apocalypse won (and one of his horsemen turned out to be that universe's version of Cable) from C &D 15-16.

If Deadpool squinted up at just the right spot on the rocky cave roof, there was a little niche of shadows that looked like a fluffy bunny. Well, like a bunny that was maybe missing a leg or two. And an ear. And half its face, and had something like a tentacle protruding from somewhere unmentionable. Probably more like a bunny after meeting Elmer Fudd with a double-barrelled shotgun in the middle of rabbit season, really.

Goddamn, wasn't there _always_ supposed to be a bunny up in the clouds when someone did this? Who did this cave think it was anyway? He was the goddamn _Deadpool_ , he'd seen fluffy bunnies in broad daylight when there wasn't a cloud, fairy floss machine or Loony Toons fourth-wall-breakout for _miles_ , what was the ceiling's excuse?

Deadpool was, put simply, bored out of his brain, and this was coming from a brain that tended to turn him away at the door for B.O. and dirty feet even on casual dress nights.

The one mercy of being chained up down in a cave with décor fresh out of _Modern S+M Monthly (Extra Affordable Monochrome Edition)_ was that at least his captor's sadism hadn't extended to gagging him - because fond as Deadpool was of his little yellow boxes, some days they just weren't the same. He'd spent the last week working his way through his entire repertoire of show tunes and 90's pop hits (his complete collection 80's pop hits and favourite TV jingles having run out the week before). Say what you like about the cave, it had _great_ acoustics – on a good day he could do whole duets with his own echo. Only trouble was that the snobby reverberation never would agree to sing the backup parts, and whenever Deadpool got to the bits that inevitably went "Nananana something potato meow meow nanana something," there was always something creeping into its tone that seemed to be mocking him.

Stupid echo. See if it ever competed with his boxes for favourite backup device.

Worse yet, the damn cave kept dripping on him. Not often, and not with any kind of regularity detectable with a wandering mind and not a single clock in sight, but it seemed like every time he was right up to the upper-key-bonus-chorus of his latest performance, some horrible stalagmite (tite? Bite? Fite? He didn't know and wouldn't have cared if there'd been anything else around to distract him, which there wasn't) up there in the bunnyless-shadows-of-the-roof would critique his performance by loosing a drop of water right into his face. Oh, he'd tried warning it; he'd made it perfectly clear to that no-good cave-ornament that if it did that one more time – _one more time_ – he'd be up there in a flash and _see if he didn't_ turn the last thousand years of calciferous limestone formation into extra-whitening toothpaste, but just when he thought he'd got that ceiling good and intimidated, what happened? _Drip_ , right in the nose. The whole being chained down thing must have been really taking the edge of his threats.

What really worried him – apart from the ongoing torture of being constantly dripped on when the guy upstairs only let him up for bathroom breaks on alternating Tuesdays – was the burning question of just how long he had left before all that dripping mineral water built up and turned him into an attractive cave formation of his own. A hundred years, maybe? A thousand? Why, in geo-marvel time, that was practically the blink of an eye! On the other hand, getting turned into a human stalagmite had to be good for at least _one_ new superpower, right? It was going to be that or sit around and wait for a radioactive cave newt to wander by.

It was a thought he made the most of, because the only other way to pass the time down here was counting the skulls, and once you knew the cave you were sitting in contained three-hundred-and-forty- _oh-fuck-it-close-enough_ skulls, that got pretty old too. There was the whole Swiss assortment of other bones down here too, but Deadpool could never think of the names of any of the interesting bendy ones. How did that song go again, the rib bone's connected to the... next rib bone? The fibula, maybe? Something ending in 'ibula'... hibula? Ribula? And where was the T-bone supposed to fit in? Being able to classify every bone in the body by the sound it made when you broke it was a nice party trick, but it didn't help him recognise them on the outside, and singing, "The crunch- _ohfuckfuckfuck_ -bone's connected to the snikt-crackle- _my-arm-my-arm_ -bone" just wasn't ever the same.

Hold on a second, he was missing the obvious solution! He _had_ a skeleton, all connected up right and everything! He should just get all his bones tattooed with their names, and whenever he forgot again he could just open himself up and check his tags! Genius!

Oh wait, that was him forgetting about that little being-tied-down problem again. He couldn't open anything up right now. Rats. It'd been such a good plan too.

Man, it was a real good thing he was already out of his skull, or being stuck down here could drive a guy _insane_.

You really knew you had problems when your evil-megalomaniac-captor stopping by to molest you for a bit was the unequivocal highlight of your week. If the whole chained-up-in-a-cave part wasn't already enough of a clue.

...Speak of the devil. He'd know the sound of those steel toed-soled-and-heeled boots anywhere. 'Course, Evil-Nate was the only one who ever came down here, so if he'd heard someone tap-dancing their way down with a full backing accompaniment of _Happy Feet_ , it'd still be safe to assume it was him, only on way too much caffeine and sugar. That or revolutionaries with seriously weird taste in victory music. Or a hallucination, but even those mostly left him alone these days – bunny-shaped or otherwise.

Heh, tap-dancing Evil-Nate. That was a good one, he should really remember it.

"Heyyyy, War old buddy! How's conquering? Big Boss still got you and the rest of the Infamous Four still working all those crazy hours? I'm telling you Nate, you should get the union on him – even henchmen get an hour off a day to spend with their families and prisoners."

The footsteps stopped, just beyond the halo of light created by the forest of drippy candles, leaving War still largely shrouded by shadows. ( _Poser._ ) "How touching. I might almost think you'd missed me."

"Oh, nah, I've been great, seriously! Never better! Me and your ceiling, we could just staaaare into each other's stalagmites forever. Just today I found _another_ place up there you could fit a widescreen TV!"

"Hm. Now there's a thought."

"Oh don't be like... what, _really?_ "

"What you may have forgotten is that there isn't a single television network still functioning on the entire continent."

"...oh you evil _bastard_."

"You flatter me." More footsteps, and if Deadpool was getting maybe just a _little_ breathy about Evil-Nate moving into arm's reach, it was just frustration. Wait, anger. Rage! That was the one. And totally not in a sexy way.

"I am _so not kidding_." A hand landed on Deadpool's ankle and started dragging its way upwards, but if War thought that was all it would take to make it up to him he had another thing coming. "The drippy cave and all the skulls and spikes and the whole Marquis de Fucking _Miserable_ theme you've got going down here – baby, that's Discount Dungeon evil, but tormenting a guy in the throws of _Golden Girls_ withdrawal, that's just... ohgodplease, it doesn't have to be a widescreen. You can put a skull motif on it and everything, it won't even clash with the décor! I know you have all the Terminator movies on DVD, I'll even take the security feed from the back alley behind the air-conditioning ducts! I'll take reruns of _Pushing Daisies!_ "

"You," said War with considerable pleasure, "are losing it."

"Am not. Know exactly where it is. Only put it down just a second ago. Left it in my other pants." There was a drawn out ripping sound. "Ooookaaay, in my _only_ pants. Wait, wasn't I wearing my other pants already? Hey, if you want this sexy body in skirts you'd better let me up to shave my legs first, there's like, a Geneva convention about it and everything."

"You're trying to divert me. It isn't going to work."

"Shit, hey! Cold fingers, cold fingers!" Squirming like a startled weasel wasn't going to help Deadpool very much, but he couldn't do much to help _it_ either. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that TO mesh is _mean_ at cold temperatures? Where've you been, conquering Iceland?"

"Norway, if you must know."

"Huh. Did you get me anything nice?"

War's grin expanded slowly into something containing enough teeth to be near-Liefeldian. "The rebel leader's head on a platter?"

"Awww, you – nnngh – shouldn't have. Anyone I know?"

"Doubtful."

"Okay, but sweet as that was of you, seriously – _you shouldn't have_ , I'm up to my _skull_ in skulls down here. Perhaps a nice ribula or two next time, and if you could maybe just get it labelled for me... oh..." The sentence broke off into something less coherent and rather more drawn out.

"Look, honey, hate to bring this up," keeping his voice at the same octave was getting further beyond Deadpool by the minute, "but I think our relationship's kinda – _nnnn_ – stuck in a rut."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, ' _oh_ '. It's all BDSM-this, casual-non-con-that, page-53-of-the-karma-sutra-for-kinky-fifth-dimensional-Stockholm-victims-the-other. There's just no _surprise_ anymore, it's all spice and no vanilla and that's... that's, uh, really bad for your digestion... ohnnnrgh... are you even listening?"

"You're saying you think it's time we tried something... different?"

Later, Deadpool would realise he should have been paying a lot more attention to War's tone at this point.

"Yes! Yes that's it exactly, there's this _wild_ thing I read about once called 'missionary position' where..."

"Hm. Perhaps you have a point." With that, War leaned back, and then stepped away from Deadpool altogether.

"Wait, what? What are you doing!?"

"Trying something _different_ ," said War, pointedly re-fastening a few crucial pieces of armour.

Deadpool stared in not-at-all-mute disbelief. "Oh come on, orgasm denial is _so_ not even original anymore! You can't leave me like this!"

"What you haven't yet grasped is that I can do _exactly_. What I please."

"Like my oversexed evil overlord could go a day without putting a hand on me? You'll come crawling back! This punishes you just as much as me... huh, okay, in point of fact you _do_ have two hands and neither of them tied to anything... hey... Hey! Don't you walk away from me! You don't have any idea what kind of rude gestures I might be pulling behind your back! Joke's over, not funny anymore!"

The sound of footsteps retreating up the stairs was the only sound in the cave for a good fifteen seconds.

"Okay fine, I give in! What do I have to do, beg? Who do you want me to kill before you let me up from here! Orphans? Puppies? Martha Stewart? I'll do Martha Stewart's orphaned puppy if that's what it takes, and by god I'll probably even _enjoy_ it! I'll wear the outfit with the spikes you like and everything! War? I know you're listening right where I can't see you just to psych me out!"

The only noise was that of a very large, heavy door closing in its usually ponderous manner.

"WAR!"


	2. Chapter 2

Imagine, if you will, a cave – or better yet, a dungeon, built complete with all standard dungeonly fittings, though excavation costs have been saved by using the cave that was conveniently there to begin with. It's the same one from the previous scene, so you're probably imagining it already. It is not completely dark, but all but two of the candles have burned down, leaving the halo of light around the cave's one permanent occupant constricted down to focus unhelpfully on his lower legs. (This is enough to reveal said legs are wearing pants at the moment, which may come as a relief to some readers.)

Now imagine the sound made by a small group of people being teleported in all at once. (Contrary to popular belief, 'BAMF' is not the most appropriate onomatopoeia, but it will probably suffice.)

The next sound is inevitably going to be that of several people trying to establish where on earth they are, only very quietly in case it's somewhere unfriendly, while their eyes gradually adjust to the gloom.

When Deadpool wakes up from a light snooze to discover that all the above has not been a particularly vivid dream it won't make any particular noise, but it's about to happen nonetheless.

* * *

It was several seconds of frantic, barely-whispered argument later that a voice from somewhere in the gloom said, "Nate? 'Zat you?" Despite being rough with sleep, there was an undeniable gravely-Demi-Moore quality to it.

All talking abruptly ceased. After a minute, a different voice (hoarse with surprise, but nonetheless recognisable) ventured, "...Wade?"

"Uh, last I checked. Didn't hear you come in, did you float all the way down the steps just to surprise me or something? Coz I can still act surprised if it means a lot to you." There was a clanking sound, made by chains shifting as their captive craned to get a better look at something. "Is it just me or is there something different about you today? Wait, don't tell me: all your good armour's in the wash and you were stuck with that old spandex thing at the back of the closet. Yeah, that happens to me all the time too. Well, used to happen."

No-one replied immediately, though there were a few exasperated mutters, the sound of someone's palm connecting sharply with its owner's face, and heavy footsteps as the owner of the second voice – who did indeed fit the description of Nathan Dayspring Askani'son Et Cetera Summers to a T – walked forward several steps into the light.

"I think you have me confused with someone else," he said, with a trace of embarrassment.

"Oh sure, with the _other_ Priscilla? Waitasec, do we have _guests?_ You never let me have guests. Are those the _Avengers?_ Didn't you _fricassee_ the Avengers? ... _Oh my god_ , don't tell me: you're alternate universe-Nate with a rescue party from another world come to save me! Oh thankyouthankyouthankyou I take back every bad thing I ever said about epic crossover events! By the love of sweet Bea Arthur, someone up there _is_ returning my calls! Whohooo!"

The silence this time was of a more embarrassed nature.

"Should I be disturbed how close to right he got that?" said the voice belonging to Luke Cage.

"If I've been following this correctly, then I'm more disturbed that we appear to have landed right in a prison cell belonging to the _very tyrant we came to ambush!_ " The distortion of Iron Man's helmet did little to take the edge off his tone.

"Was the signal intercepted?" said Captain America. "If he found out we were coming, could he have diverted our landing point?"

"While we're on the bad news kick," said Spider-Man, "wasn't our team, like, twice as spidey when we left home?"

Everyone looked around at once, with a net effect that would have been comical in better light.

"Jessica? If you can hear me, say something!"

"Not like her to wander off in the dark."

"'Bodyslide by six'," Cable muttered. "I never thought to allow for this."

"Cable, if you have an explanation we should be hearing..." Cap prompted.

"I'm afraid this is probably my fault," said Cable, apologetically. "In our world, Deadpool and I went through a... a kind of accidental genetic exchange which had the side effect of confusing the signatures my teleportation matrix used to identify us."

"... nudge-nudge, wink-wink, _if-you-know-what-I-mean_."

"The same must have transpired in this universe. I had Forge fine-tune the process to exclude the alternate version of myself when he sent us here, but... I was under the impression we wouldn't be finding Deadpool alive."

"Hah, oh if I had a buck for every time I've heard _that_ one... would've hired a stunt double to do all my being tied up for me for a start..."

A faint smile crossed Cable's face, but he turned away before the others saw it.

"So instead of transporting the six of us to a safe landing point..." said Cap, catching on.

"...it picked up me, Deadpool and the four people closest to me when I gave the command," Cable finished.

"Which still doesn't explain why it brought us to him, instead of bringing him with us," Iron Man pointed out.

"Ooh, me, me, I know this one!"

"Wade?"

"Yeah, my fault, got my teleportation-proof vest on. You may fire at will!"

Everyone stared at him.

"Okay, fine, my teleportation proof _hand-cuffs_. Happy?"

"You mean your restraints," said Cable.

"Evil-you _really_ didn't want anyone 'porting me out of here," said Deadpool. "Had one of his little overlord-moments and gave me the whole infomercial on them when he locked me up down here. They're also tamper-proof and water-proof and radioactive-cave-newt-proof and even dislocating-your-thumbs-to-escape proof. He let me find _that_ one out the hard way though, the bastard. Stiffed me my free set of steak knives too."

"Meaning that when the teleport couldn't take Deadpool with us, it compromised by bringing us – _minus_ Spider-Woman – to him," said Iron Man, resting his forehead on a hand. "Cable, when this is over you and I are going to have a long talk about the proper programming of _failsafes_."

"Hey, since we're talking about these stylish cuffs of mine," Deadpool piped up, "it is _seriously_ bad for your hero cred that you've all been down here ten minutes and no-one's let me out of them yet."

This silence was the uncomfortable kind where even the non-telepathic could hear everyone thinking.

"Before anyone voices anything they may want to distance themselves from later," said Cable, "I'll remind you all we can't Bodyslide out of here without him."

"We're aware," said Cap. "Tony?"

"On it," said Iron Man, stepping forward.

"So," said Spider-Man while everyone watched him work, "is anyone else seriously weirded out that Evil Cable has a whole cave down here just to keep Deadpool locked up in?"

"No gags about not being evil enough to lock someone else up with him for company?" said Luke.

"You have _no idea_ how hard I'm restraining myself."

"Deadpool, is there anyone else down here?" said Captain America, tactfully ignoring the rest of the conversation going on behind him.

"Just me and the stalagmites. Hey Metal Man? If your plan for getting those off me involves staring at them and wishing really hard, I tried that one already this morning. Clapping your hands or clicking your heels are still open for you to try if you want though."

Iron Man started crossly out of a haze of concentration. "I'm... oh, nevermind."

"Can you get him free?" asked Cap.

"Yes. But I'm going to have to do it without tripping at least three different alarms in the mechanism."

"How long?"

"You know the saying about getting your food cheap, fast or good?"

Cap frowned. "How long do we have?"

"Depends how long War is likely to take to notice us down here," said Cable, looking at Deadpool.

"Search me, not like he bothers to call before dropping by. Plus I'm pretty sure he's got a 24 hour live Deadpool feed going down here."

"Then we may not have very long," Cable concluded, grimly. "What are our options?"

"The clean way would be to hack the system and disable the alarms from the top," said Iron Man, "but the technology here is years ahead of our century," (the helmet may have directed a slight glare at Cable here). "I could force the locks one at a time, but the alarm will trip long before I'm done. Physical contact on the mechanism from anyone without Deadpool's DNA signature will do the same. The last alarm is connected to pressure sensors on the inside of the cuffs, so short of leaving his hands and feet _behind_ when we leave there's no way to avoid… ah. I actually didn't mean to suggest that."

It was a moment later that Spider-Man said, "That's it, we are _way_ over our uncomfortable silence quota for this month."

"Wade," said Cable slowly, "is your healing factor still working?"

"Oh, sure. It's been working out like you've never seen it work before – regular schedule, three times a week."

"Am I going crazy," asked Spider-Man, voice just a little higher and faster than normal, "or did we seriously suggest what I think we just suggested?"

"It's up to you Wade," said Cable, looking grim. "The slow method puts us at risk, but it's still an option."

"Lemme see. Excruciating pain now plus FREEDOM FOR ALL, or I stay here and delay the excruciating pain until Evil-Nate next comes home in a bad mood." Deadpool craned his head forward to look straight down at his toes. "Sorry extremities, it's been real, but at this point in my career you are just _holding me back_."

"Fast and cheap it is," Iron Man muttered. "The pencil laser will cauterise the wound as I cut, but there isn't anything I can offer for the pain. Are you ready?"

"No, but you probably better start before I _am_ and the panic attack sets in. If I start screaming like a little girl for you to stop, don't worry too much - I'm pretty used to getting ignored lately when I do that. I'd ask if one of you guys would hold my hand while he does this, but that's gonna be a bit of a joke in a minute so... ayup, that would be panic setting in right about there, oohboy..."

The high-pitched whine of the laser starting up drowned out the sound of most of the cave's occupants taking deep breaths all at once.

A large drop of water fell on Deadpool's face, but for once he didn't even notice it.

* * *

An alarm did go off eventually when the temperature inside the cuffs started dropping sharply towards the ambient, but by the time War came roaring down the stairs with fury befitting his name, the Avengers were all long gone.


	3. Chapter 3

They made camp in a half-ruined building in what remained of the city outside. There were plenty to choose from.  
  
It might have been for the best that he'd had no warning they were going to find Deadpool alive, Cable reflected. There was nothing he could have done to prepare himself – not that would have helped. Confronting as it was always going to be to see War's handiwork first hand, it all paled against such bleak evidence of all that malice turned against a close friend; that had a personal touch that went right to the bone.  
  
It took ten minutes of babbling (inane even by his usual standards) for Wade's hands and feet to regenerate completely, but barely were his toenails done before he was off, frolicking – there was no other word for it – over the rubble piles like a drunken acrobat, celebrating his new freedom at the top of his lungs, until the others yelled at him to shut up before he attracted them attention of a kind they couldn't afford. It would have been a touching sight if not for the ever-present reminder of just exactly what he'd been through to inspire so much joy at simple freedom, or at whose hands. Cable had done his best to keep his distance through the regeneration process; he didn't like to think what kind of associations the sight of his face might trigger for Deadpool – especially after being injured so badly. Wade showed no outward signs of trauma, but that didn't mean there weren't any buried deeper down.  
  
What could you say to someone who'd spent so long imprisoned and tortured by a man who shared your face? Futile as it would be to assume responsibility for the actions of his alternate self, Apocalypse's influence could only excuse so much.  
  
Almost as bad had been finding confirmation that the Façade Virus incident had taken place in this world – and it was hard to imagine that the same genetic transfer could have happened any other way. The discovery put a date on War's fall from grace that was almost too recent for comfort. Perhaps no more than a few months had passed since this timeline diverged from their own, and yet so much damage had been done.  
  
It probably _was_ fortunate he'd been too surprised for the full implications of what they'd found in War's prison to strike him right away. Anything he'd prepared to say could only have been woefully insufficient.  
  
"So since when are you an Avenger, anyway?"  
  
Cable startled out of his thoughts to find Wade crouched on a rock beside him. But for the way his hands and feet poked awkwardly from holes in his costume, he looked as relaxed and comfortable as Cable had ever seen him.  
  
"Aren't you on at least two different X-teams already, depending what title's running this month?" Wade went on. "And running, like, two countries at once? I thought Wolverine had exclusive dibbs on that power."  
  
"I'm not an Avenger officially," Cable explained. "Circumstances have simply pushed us together over the last few months."  
  
"So what brings you all to Apoco-land? 'Sides saving my ass, of course, which was totally awesome of you and all, but if you came all the way out here to recruit _another_ mutant-messiah-type to help you keep up with all that work then _hooboy_ did you guys pick the wrong one."  
  
"It's a bit more complicated than that," said Cable, with nothing but perfect honesty.  
  
"I got nowhere to be, do you?" said Deadpool, settling himself cross-legged on his rock. " _Exposit_ me a tale, storyteller-Nate!"  
  
Cable glanced at where Captain America and Tony Stark had been deep in debate, the latter's helmet removed.  
  
"Go on, bring him up to speed," said Stark, with only a slight trace of the exasperation all the Avengers experienced whenever they were unavoidably reminded of Wade's existence. "We can quiz him for whatever he can give us on War when you're done."  
  
Cable nodded and turned back to where Wade was watching him expectantly. "Two days ago," he began, "the Providence of our world was hit by a devastating act of sabotage. To keep the technical details to a minimum, a crucial component in the power converter for my teleport matrix was damaged beyond repair. The system is running on backup power for now, but once that runs out, the unit will become useless. The technology to repair it simply doesn't exist in our time."  
  
"So you came to steal a new one from Evil-You!" Wade guessed. "But isn't that, like, against the Prime Directive or something?"  
  
"It wasn't a decision we took lightly," Cable assured him, and even that came close to being a criminal oversimplification of the full argument it had taken to convince the Avengers to agree to this. "Forge had this reality... bookmarked, so to speak, from a previous misadventure. If our mission required us to deprive an alternate world of an irreplaceable piece of technology, we felt it would only be excusable if we could be sure to do that world a favour in the process."  
  
"I still say I could have reverse-engineered something that would have done the job," said Stark.  
  
"Time we don't have, Stark," Cable replied. It was an old argument.  
  
"So is this before or after you all lay the epic smackdown on whoever sprung the leak in the bottom of Providence?" asked Wade. "'Cause that had to be one of the _big_ names, right? Like Doctor Doom or..."  
  
"The US government," said Cable dryly.  
  
"Not that we'll ever be able to prove it," said Cap, without any more enthusiasm.  
  
"Whoa, way to go _Nate!_ " Wade crowed, leaping up to slap Cable enthusiastically on the back. "I mean, they always hated your guts for being so totally un-American with that big hippie island paradise you run, but you must've really pissed in their Cheerios this time."  
  
"In a manner of speaking," said Cable. "What you need to understand for context is that six months ago, the US government passed a law requiring all metahumans to register themselves or be hunted down as felons."  
  
"Ah, the good ol' U.S. of A: truth, justice and _shameless_ pandering to the bigoted voting-and-comic-book-buying majority! I love a good crossover event, don't you?"  
  
Cable had to squash down an uncomfortable impulse to tell Deadpool that he'd certainly been loving it at the time. Explaining anything to Wade always became a constant battle against getting sidetracked.  
  
"As you could imagine," he went on instead, "I was among a large majority of the superhero population who opposed the act – a majority that only increased as the overwhelming corruption behind how the act was being enforced became apparent." Cable very carefully did not glance over his shoulder, but you could practically hear Tony Stark's jaw clenching.  
  
"Did the temperature in here just drop about fifteen degrees?" asked Spider-Man.  
  
"It's amazing how much less traumatic it sounds in summary," commented Stark.  
  
"Wow," said Wade. "You guys have _all_ the fun."  
  
"Oh yeah, good times," said Spider-Man. "My favourite bit was when two of the politicians who drafted the act turned out to be Skrulls. What about you guys?"  
  
"How 'bout the part where they _still_ wouldn't overturn it after that went down?" said Luke Cage.  
  
"This isn't the time to bring up the full debate again," said Cap sternly.  
  
"A long story," Cable repeated, rubbing his head. "But for my part, when it became clear there was little hope the matter would be resolved quickly – and that the government wasn't going to stop hunting down unregistered heroes while the debate dragged on – I had Providence offer asylum to any American metahuman who preferred not to register. A number have been using my Bodyslide technology to keep up their crime-fighting work in public view without getting caught – and with considerably more effectiveness than most of the government sponsored teams, given the amount of red tape they're fostered with nowadays. Not least since it became apparent that the authorities had been instructing them to prioritise capturing unregistered metahumans over apprehending real criminals. The act has been losing support fast since that became public knowledge, but it isn't going down without a fight.  
  
"In other words, the ability of unregistered superheros to teleport in and out of the country at will has become a lynchpin in our bargaining position. If we can't get the teleportation matrix running again soon, and the US learns the sabotage was successful, then even at best they'll have the ammunition to justify extending the debate yet again."  
  
No-one had wanted to think too hard about the worst case scenario.  
  
"So basically," said Wade, "you could've said you guys 'ported in to lay the smackdown on Evil-Alternate-Cable to piss off the government, right? I played a video game like that once, but I got kinda fed up around when I had to go down the cave to collect a billion bottle caps from flying frog monsters to trade in with the ugly dwarf who had the key to the tower to save the princess from the..."  
  
"You get the idea," Cable cut in quickly.  
  
"But this does still all come back to the bit with you guys handing War his armour-plated-butt on a decorative platter, right? Because I am down with that like you do not even _know_."  
  
"That is the plan, yes. To be honest," Cable admitted, "after all these months of arguing with politicians, we were all about ready to jump at the chance of doing anything resembling a little old-fashioned superheroing." The other Avengers all took on faintly sheepish looks that did nothing to subtract credibility from that notion.  
  
"Great, sign me up! What do I do to help?"  
  
"You can tell us everything you know about War," said Captain America.  
  
"Starting with anything with tactical significance," Cable added quickly.  
  
"Aww, are you sure? You're going to miss some awesome goss from when the paparazzi caught him sneaking into the X-Mansion to make Emma Frost an ' _offer she couldn't refuse_ ' –"  
  
" _Tactical significance_ please, Wade."  
  
"Spoilsport."


	4. Chapter 4

  
The sight of the ruined city was really starting to get to Peter. There were just enough recognisable parts left for it to be pointless to pretend it was anywhere other than New York – a city he'd spent the best (and plenty of the _worst_ ) years of his life working overtime to keep intact. One measly universe away from home and all of that was for nothing. Even the rats and the tabloid reporters must have abandoned this place by now.

According to Cable, there was an evil version of _him_ out there somewhere. Out of a group of four evil horse(less)men with cool names like 'War' and 'Death', he _would_ be the one to draw 'Pestilence' – but at least he wasn't the loser stuck with 'Famine'. Unlike Cable though, Peter would have been perfectly happy to get this job over with without having to meet his evil counterpart. Great Power might come with Great Responsibility, but Avengers' membership came with the welcome luxury of leaving the big decisions to other people once in a while.

That was probably for the best, because a team with Cap and Tony _and_ Cable was a team which already had about three times more leadership than was healthy. Sometimes up to four times more when Luke Cage got into it.

Why had this sounded like such a good idea? Had they really thought they'd just stop by, get a little real Avenging done as a change from all that politics, and be back in time for dinner? People could be _committed_ for less than that.

Something twinged at Peter's spider-sense, making him jump in a seriously undignified manner, but it turned out just to be Deadpool come to get some fresh air or whatever.

"Oh, it's _you_ ," said Peter. "They done grilling you in there?"

"Told me to go play while they talked grown-up stuff," shrugged Deadpool, rolling a shoulder with the exaggerated enthusiasm of someone who wouldn't be taking basic mobility for granted for a while. "Hey Spidey, race you across the city! Last one to the other side has to picture Famine naked."

"Yeah sure," said Peter, "or how 'bout we do something that _won't_ advertise where we are to everyone this side of the Atlantic?"

"Hey, I don't get out much lately, why waste the good weather?" said Deadpool, sprawling happily down backwards on the ground, arms and legs spread. "I mean, look at that view! Clear skies, fresh air, neo-Egyptian pillars on every street corner and all the rubble you can eat!"

"You can almost smell the asbestos," Peter grumbled, though he had to admit that after being chained up in a cave for god knows how long, he'd probably be ready to welcome a sight like this too. "Has it changed much since last time you were outside?"

"Nah," said Deadpool. "It's only been a couple weeks, the Fab Four keep their city-renovation schedule way tighter than that."

"Wait, _two weeks?_ " Peter blurted, almost laughing. "That's all? We were thinking you'd been down there for, oh, months or something!" It shouldn't have been funny. Even an hour chained up like that with no idea when (or if) you'd get out would be a miserable experience (unless you were, well, _into_ that sort of thing, which was one of those mental places Peter was going to avoid going at all costs). Two weeks would be levels of suck that even Peter's life only descended to on rare occasions, but the dungeon had looked like it'd been there pretty much forever.

"Don't ask me, I can't tell what day it is down there," Deadpool grumbled. "Two weeks is just mostly how long I figure it was since he let me out last."

"He _let you out?_ That's awfully... _nice_ for an evil overlord."

Deadpool shrugged. "It beat spending another night in the cave, but it's not like he took me anywhere nice. Apocalypse had just set him up on a murdering spree down in some resistance camp they dug up and he didn't have a date."

It was so not a good sign when a mere statement could set off Peter's spider-sense. "He took you out to _kill people?_ Okay, that pretty much cancels the 'nice' part."

"Oh, you know – reprogramming me into an insane killing machine is all part of his evil plan to... turn me evil, or whatever," Deadpool explained, waving a hand around in a dismissive sort of way. "It's this whole 'BWAHAHAHAHA WE ARE NOT SO DIFFERENT YOU SHALL BOW TO MY POWER' sorta thing for him. The keeping me locked up part is just until I _crack_. Now and then he takes me out to see if it's worked yet. He offered me the chance to stay out of the cave permanently if I did my best Conan impression with enough of those resistance bozos."

Peter had to bite down on a couple of scathing remarks about the distance between Deadpool and evil even on a _good_ day – they were only funny even when they weren't right. "You're not telling me you actually..."

"Hey, don't you go all _moral_ on _me_. He was going to kill them anyway!"

"You think that makes it _okay?_ "

"Do I look like a guy who turns to the 'ethical dilemmas' page in the Saturday morning puzzles? _You_ try being locked down in a cave with only me for company for a few months and see how _you_ like it."

"But he still locked you up again afterwards." Peter was clinging to this detail with all the web he was worth.

"Yeah, I dunno." Deadpool sounded honestly confused. "Maybe I didn't look enthusiastic enough for him? Or I didn't make the high scores for dramatic disembowelling and eyeball-popping. Or maybe he was worried I was going to beat _his_ high scores. Bastard never said, just locked me back up and told me he expected me to do a better job next time."

Peter made an attempt at feeling reassured. It didn't work. Shit, what was he supposed to do with this? It wasn't exactly news that Deadpool would kill if the price was high enough, and he _had_ been locked up... but if he'd been going along with War's instructions to the point of helping hunt people down that couldn’t be a good sign. Or was this just standard Deadpool-crazy? How were you even supposed to tell the difference without a degree in abnormal psychology, and maybe a PhD or two for good measure?

So much for this being less complicated than home-world politics. It was quite a relief to get interrupted by the other Avengers before the conversation could go any further into TMI territory.

"Deadpool?" The voice was Tony's, Luke standing behind him. That meant Cap and Cable had been left alone inside, probably either locked in the staring match to end all staring matches or arguing obscure points of philosophy. They really knew how to make a guy glad he'd generally left 'great responsibility' defined at well below federal or international level.

"Speaking." Wade craned his head backwards in an uncomfortable looking way, the sole obvious benefit being to allow him to see who was behind him without technically getting up.

"We need you back inside. You too, Peter – we're ready to start talking tactical options."

"We still going with the virus-thingy?" Peter asked, getting up and dusting himself off.

Tony nodded. "From what Deadpool's told us," this was delivered with only the barest hint of sarcasm, "it's still our best option."

"Virus-thingy?" said Wade. "You're going to fight Evil-Nate with techno-herpes?"

"...I'll let Nathan explain," said Tony, turning quickly back the other way. Whether this was to avoid Deadpool or hurry back before Cap and Cable demolished the place was pretty much a moot point.


	5. Chapter 5

"Actually," explained Cable, "it's a modified strain of the Façade Virus."

Much of the interior wall area of the building was now covered by a mess of wiring, which had emerged butterfly-style from Tony Stark's briefcase. Connected at points were the various components of a camouflage and alarm system – makeshift work, but functional. The Avengers, mostly seated on the more comfortable pieces of available debris, listened with a kind of trainwreck fascination to the spectacle of Cable trying to get the plan through Deadpool's skull.

Deadpool scratched his head. "The one that gave everyone really bad sunburn and turned us into goo? I thought you destroyed it."

"Deactivated, not destroyed," Cable clarified. "This particular strain is based on the one the One World Church used to block my telekinesis."

"Oh, now that's _devious_. You kept it all this time?"

"I had a suspicion it would come in useful someday," said Cable, looking more than a little smug. "So I kept a vial, hidden in a hollowed-out book entitled 'Economics of the Textile Industry of the 16th and 17th Centuries'. I was relatively confident no-one I didn't want getting their hands on it would look there."

Deadpool made a face like a monkey trying to comprehend advanced mathematics. "Someone probably asked this question before I got to class this morning, but why go to all this germ warfare hoo-hah when you could just waste him the old fashioned way? Evil-Nate's still getting his solo career off the ground, while we've got Good-Nate _and_ the Nate-ettes."

There was a brief pause as everyone in the room tried to parse Advanced Deadpool into English.

"Okay, okay, Good-Nate and the _Avengers_ , you don't all have to glare at me at once."

"The difference," said Cable, catching up first, "is that he is in possession of all his telekinetic and telepathic abilities at the height of their power. I'm... not. Anymore. Even my technological replacements won't work here – we're too far from home."

Deadpool drooped a little. "Well that _sucks_. So, we give Bad-Nate a case of the melting-STD, the playing field see-saws back the other way, Cable and the Avengers (and I would so buy that record, by the way) go straight to the top of the charts. That about the size of it?"

"Apart from a couple of minor complications," Tony Stark put in, with only mild sarcasm.

"Oh good, for a second there I was worried you guys were trying to sell me the idea this was going to be _easy_."

"The issue," added Cap, "is how we get the virus to War without him knowing."

"What, no flash photography? Did I miss the signs?"

"The light-based vector for delivering the virus was supposed to be one of our options," explained Cable, ruefully. "Unfortunately, the one carrying the device we needed to deliver it that way was Spider-Woman. Providence doesn't have the power to spare to send her or it to join us."

"Oh, _buuurn_."

"That leaves us with the option of transmitting the virus by direct means, and in that form it takes longer to spread through the body. That's a problem, because we've confirmed that War has been exposed to it before. There's a real possibility he'll be able to use his telekinesis to block its effects before the virus has a chance to block his telekinesis."

"So after you guys already spent an hour testing my knowledge of War's favourite bands and boxers vs. briefs preferences, now my million dollar bonus question is how do we get our Trojan under his firewall without him knowing? Ooh, that's a good one. Am I out of lifelines?"

"We're open to anything you can suggest," said Cable.

Wade appeared to think for a moment.

"Seriously, was I on the right track calling it an STD? 'Cause if so, I've got an idea."

At least three palms in the room connected sharply with their owners' foreheads.

"Wilson," said Stark, through gritted teeth, "even if we _could_ find someone willing to volunteer for something as ridiculous as what you seem to be suggesting –"

"Whaaaat, Tony Stark dancing around talking 'bout the birds and the bees? I _never!_ "

" – and even _if_ there was any plausibility to the idea that War would fall for such a ruse – "

"Even megalomanic mutants got _urges_ just like the rest of us."

" – even _if_ that was possible," Tony continued, with the strained patience that bespoke just how barely he could believe he was arguing this seriously, "then I remind you that War is _telepathic_ , and would read the plan right out of the mind of whoever we sent!"

"BZZZZZT, _wrong!_ The million dollar bonus round goes to me, 'cause lucky for us, I'm telepath-proof!"

There was a short, awkward silence.

" _You?_ " said Tony.

"Who else? No offence, Mr-three-times-voted-most-eligible-superhero, but you're just not his type."

"And you _are?_ " barked Luke Cage, taking a crucial minute too long to catch up.

Deadpool explained.

The awkward silence returned.

"Whaaaat, you guys didn't _know?_ " said Deadpool, just a little insulted. "Is it because I wasn't wearing my Princess Leia Slave Bikini on when you guys came in? Because I offered to wear one – I seriously did – but he wouldn't let me. Why did you think he was keeping me down there, the scintillating conversation?"

"I don't know about the rest of us, but I was trying really hard _not_ to think about it," said Spider-Man, voice hitting an octave higher than usual.

"Oh sure, just _contribute_ to the culture of silence surrounding victims of _unrelenting_ kinky sex at the hands of bondage-obsessed over-villains, why don't you?" Deadpool grumbled. "Hope you realise people like you are _exactly_ why survivors have such a tough time coming forward. 'Cept around here, where it's because everyone's dead, but out in all those _other_ universes..."

" _Wade_ ," said Cable, voice slightly hoarse. "You can't think this is going to work."

"What's not to work? I sneak in, pretend I'm trying to kill him – which is going to be _really_ convincing because of how I'm going to be seriously trying (and if it works, great! We can all go home early!) – he catches me in the act, shows me what a baaaaaad boy I've been, leave him to simmer for a couple of hours then you lot run in and clean up."

"You realise," said Cable, "that even if you do this, he'll have access to your healing factor. That's the same thing I used to defeat the Façade Virus last time."

"It's not going to make me melt this time, right? So he'll be minus his mind-whammies, minus use of all his arms and legs, and plus a skin condition from a sci-fi B-movie, whereas I'll be good, dependable ol' Deadpool, taking _ass_ and kicking _names!_ "

"And if he chains you down before the virus takes effect, what then?"

"We aren't seriously considering this?" asked Captain America in disbelief.

"Well, _Cap_ ," said Deadpool, "last I checked, the bonus question wasn't multiple choice. What _was_ Plan B? Anyone?"

The loudest answer was Luke Cage swearing quietly to himself. A lot.

"I can't believe I'm this close to encouraging this," said Tony Stark, "but the theory of what he's suggesting is uncomfortably sound. I had Maya do a full analysis on a sample of the Façade Virus before we left to check for any unexpected surprises it might have in store for us. The trade-off this strain gives us for the longer incubation time is that when the symptoms do hit, they'll hit hard and fast. He should be near-paralysed within minutes. It's also," he added, with even more reluctance, "highly sexually transmissible."

"See?" said Wade. "The rest of you aren't going to argue with _science_ , are you?"

"When we asked for suggestions," said Cable, rubbing his forehead, "we were hoping for something more along the lines of slipping it into his food."

" _Tough_ ," snapped Wade. "Y'see, Nate, I don't get to see a lot of his eating habits. Couldn't even tell you where the back door to his massive Gothic doom castle is. Pretty much all I got to bring to the party is how he likes oiling up his _T.O.-joystick_ – and boxers or briefs, c'mon, didn't you guys even wonder about that one? I took six months of being his chew-toy, give or take, so what's another day? And between you and me, if I get to turn this on him so his fucked up ideas about _consent_ get to be part of what takes him down, the beauty of it all is gonna be just about worth it. Still waiting for Option B, guys."

"There has to be a better way," said Cap desperately.

Wade spread his hands. "You could still charge him head first like the protein-powered hunks of manhood you all are. I'm not the one who's gonna have to mop up the mess when he's done with you. If I head for the hills now I might even get whole days before he catches me again."

Cable looked him right in the eye, almost pleading. "You know none of us would ask this something like this of you."

"I _know_ , Nate. Damn, I know you're getting your second-hand-guilt on over me offering to go play prison bitch to Evil-You. But I'm _volunteering_ , and so help me, you guys had better make it worth my while – if he chains me up before he keels over, I am going to be _counting down the minutes_ until you all come busting through the windows. Counting the _seconds_."

The staring match finally ended when Cable looked down.

"Trust me," he uttered, "We'll be ready."

Deadpool looked around the room.

"How's that Plan B coming along? Is it gonna involve cutting my favourite limbs off again? There's always the off-chance the title'll get the chop before we have to do anything if we drag it out another issue. Or who knows? The writer could _die_. How's eternal limbo sounding as Plan B? Coz even I'm not flexible enough to keep shimmying under that bar forever."

Answers remained unforthcoming.


	6. Chapter 6

The mood after Deadpool left was sombre. The idea of this mission as a chance to do some 'real Avenging' after months of internal conflicts and mind-numbing politics seemed more ironic by the minute. Teleporting themselves to a parallel universe to steal an irreplaceable piece of technology alone had been enough to justify as appropriate behaviour for the world's most prominent superhero team. Relying on what amounted to germ-warfare had been no better. Being forced to depend on the help of someone like Deadpool was just as questionable, and now that it had come to sending one of their number to (literally) get in bed with the enemy, the whole experience had come to work slightly too well as an uncomfortable metaphor for everything they'd been trying to avoid back home, rather than the welcome reprieve it should have been.   
  
When Luke Cage got sick of this and decided he wanted a word with Cable, the latter was sitting alone on the camp perimeter. The directly he was facing lay a pointed thirty degrees diverged from the place where Deadpool had given them all a jaunty wave and taken off towards War's fortress, but there was no hiding where his thoughts lay. Every now and then his eyes drifted to a device in his lap that was programmed to set off an alarm as soon as the virus spread far enough through War's system to release the signature of destabilising T.O. mesh. So far it had made not so much as a warning beep, but this soon no-one would have expected anything else.   
  
Luke took a seat next to him and made himself comfortable. Cable made no comment either for or against his unexpected company.  
  
"Couldn't help but notice you didn't seem all that surprised by what your evil twin had been doing with 'Pool," said Luke.  
  
Cable gave him a sideways look. "Is this leading into a question about my sexual preferences?"  
  
"Like whether they're wide enough to include mouthy, ugly and batshit crazy?"  
  
"They stop a long way short of _imprisonment, rape_ and _torture_ , if that's what you're worried about," said Cable, voice low and dangerous.   
  
"What I'm worried about," said Luke, "is whether there's something going on that might've made you bit too quick to trust him to carry off that crazy plan. Rest of us never woulda considered it if you hadn't been for it."  
  
"Cage," said Cable, evenly, "I just sent a close, personal friend – who has already suffered months of abuse at the hands of an alternate version of myself – off to suffer yet more abuse – all under the questionable justification of 'the greater good'. Believe me when I say that any _deeper_ feelings I might ever have felt for Deadpool did not make that any easier."  
  
Cage scratched his neck, not fully convinced but forced to accept that as a perspective he might have missed on the subject.   
  
"If you're accusing me of bias on this matter," Cable went on, somewhat less comfortably, "then you should be more concerned that I haven't become so determined to see War defeated as to be willing to contemplate _any_ means, no matter the morality of it."  
  
Cage appeared to consider this. "Seeing yourself warped that far," he offered, "would be hard not to take that personally."   
  
Cable's mouth flattened in a manner that bore little semblance to a smile. "Before we left, Captain America asked me point-blank how much of my motivation for this expedition came from my own sense of responsibility for the crimes committed by my alternate self. I told him that played a very real part. Knowing that there's a version of myself like War only a thin wall away from our reality has been preying on my mind for some time."  
  
Cage shrugged. "Hate to say it, but shit like this happens to the best of us in this business."  
  
"And what is that but a sign of our failure to take responsibility? The last year has shown us all too well how easily the public opinion can be shifted against people like you and me. But that's beside the point. I've tried to be realistic about my bias with regards to this mission, but I assured Captain America I hadn't let it overrule my better judgement on the risks we'd be taking. His response was to tell me – after a certain amount of argument on tangential topics – he hoped that was true. There's a part of me that's still hoping the same. We've crossed a number of lines just by coming here, and I don't know whether what we've just done crosses one too many."  
  
"Summers, every one of us has been wondering which side of the line we're on every day since this whole damn registration mess raised its ugly head. If we imagined this job was gonna be any simpler that's just to show how screwed up our lives have been lately. In the meantime, the rest of us have still gotta worry whether Deadpool's gonna pull this off or screw up and give the whole game away."  
  
Cable gave a wry smile. "I'd be foolish to imagine there isn't a very real danger he's going to screw it up. But his odds of success are still much better than any other means to infect a powerful telepath with a slow-acting virus without his knowledge, let alone our odds of defeating him without the virus. It may not say much that I trust Deadpool more than the rest of you do, but he remains our the best hope. And, Spider-Man," he added, "just because I'm no longer telepathic doesn't mean I haven't noticed you eavesdropping back there."  
  
"I wasn't eavesdropping!" Spider-Man protested. "I was waiting for a good time to join the conversation!"  
  
"You both realise the ideal time to raise all these objections would have been _before_ Wade left, don't you?" said Cable, sounding tired.   
  
"It slipped my mind!" Spider-Man insisted. "I was too busy trying _not_ to picture anything involving him and War to remember it! But right before that meeting, Deadpool was saying all this stuff that sounded like _really_ bad news!"  
  
"That sounds like Wade," Cable observed.   
  
"No, _really_ bad news!" Spider-Man reiterated. "War wasn't keeping him down in the dungeon full time, he'd been taking him out to kill people!"  
  
"He _what?_ " said Cable, head snapping up sharply.   
  
"Son of a _bitch_ ," Cage exclaimed. No-one thought to ask which party he was referring to.   
  
"I'm not talking about just making him watch either," said Spider-Man. "Deadpool was _joining in_. He was telling me all about it!"  
  
"Peter," said Cable, dangerously, "if there are any details you're _glossing over_..."   
  
"Deadpool thought it was part of some kind of Stockholm-brainwashing thing," Peter explained. "Y'know, bad treatment to wear him down, then rewards promised for good behaviour, where _good behaviour_ means slaughtering innocent people on command. He didn't sound _overjoyed_ about it, but he reckoned as long as War would've killed them whether he helped or not, it didn't matter. Deadpool may be morally challenged on a good day, but how do we know the reprogramming didn't _work?_ "  
  
Cable's mouth had become thin, hard line. He didn't immediately respond.   
  
Cage raised his eyebrows. "You still happy with your stance on how far to we should be trusting the guy?"  
  
"I... don't know," Cable admitted. "His hatred for War – that much I don't doubt, but if War has that much influence over him... I worry we don't know even the beginning of what War's put him through, or how much damage it's done." He hesitated a moment, then added, "I wish I'd come sooner."  
  
"Aw, that's real sweet, Nate," said a gravely voice. "But last I checked, the exchange rate on wishes was still _pretty fucking miserable_. Check back next month?"  
  
Everyone turned. Deadpool was crouching on a tall heap of rubble, just beyond the nominal camp perimeter.   
  
"Wade?" said Cable, startled. "You're back? Did you..." A glance at the device in his lap showed that it continued flashing the lights that showed it to be active, but it remained stubbornly silent.  
  
The second warning sign was the state of Wade's costume. Gone were the tell-tale gaps left where the fabric had failed to regenerate along with his hands and feet; the suit he now wore was clean and new. While Deadpool had left here armed with only a single, modestly-sized gun loaned from Cable, he'd come back armed to the teeth, two guns on his belt and his customary twin katanas strapped to his back. In a world like this one, the possible sources where Deadpool could have acquired armaments like that were heavily limited, and the only probable option was one Cable did not want to consider.  
  
"Yeah, 'bout that," said Deadpool, unholstering a gun and levelling it casually at the Avengers, " _Sorry_ guys. Change of plan."  
  
Before anyone could make up their minds how to respond, the armoured monstrosity of War was levitating up behind Deadpool in all his glory, grinning a grin that glowed with bloodlust and power.  
  
"Hard to believe, coming from him, isn't it?" he said to the Avengers, an eerie trace of fondness in a voice that promised murder with every other syllable, "For once in his life, Wade has managed to be guilty of _understatement_."


	7. Chapter 7

The first to react was Luke Cage. "You sick mother _fucker!_ " he yelled at the top of his lungs, launching himself at Deadpool before War had risen high enough to reach full view. Inches away, Cage froze in mid-air and was thrown flying as if he weighed no more than a baseball. War lowered his hand.  
  
"Hey!" Deadpool protested. "I could have taken him!"  
  
"You can play with him later," said War, as all of Tony's proximity alarms began wailing at once. "I want to _savour_ this moment. The _rage_ , the _betrayal_ – in all of their minds – such a pity you cannot enjoy it likewise." War laughed aloud. "You truly gave none of them the slightest notion of what they had in store, did you?"  
  
"Wade," yelled Cable, horror in his every feature, " _what have you done?_ "  
  
"Preeeeetty much just what it looks like, _Nate_ ," Deadpool called back. "'S called 'being a backstabbing bastard', but we experts like to call it 'playing for the winning team'."  
  
"Like looking back in time," mused War, meeting Cable's eye, though the comment was directed more at Deadpool. "To think I was ever so foolish as to believe you could be tamed with no more than sentimentality and _good will_."  
  
"So Nate, you are gonna, like, run and fight and stuff instead of just flopping around like a beached fish, right?" said Deadpool, waving his gun. "'Cause thanks to you guys I finally got the leverage I needed to get War here to let me out, but I haven't had a whole lot of exercise lately and I'm feeling the need to do something kinda special to celebrate."  
  
The change in Cable's face was short and terrible, shock giving way to rage line by line, teeth clenching in time with his fists. Cable's gun was in his hands and levelled at Deadpool almost too fast to see – but barely a split-second faster, a glob of webbing hit Deadpool right in the mouth. Spider-Man wasn't far behind it.  
  
"Grmmmmph!" exclaimed Deadpool, flailing backwards. Two bullets passed harmlessly through the space Spider-Man had occupied slightly too many seconds before and landed in the rubble beyond. War rolled his eyes.  
  
"Hey Deadpool, I'm sure you hear this a lot," said Spider-Man, following the first stream of webbing with a second, "but no-one has _ever_ wanted you to shut up as much as I do right now."  
  
"Mmph!" Flailing turned into a tumble turned into a crazily gymnastic back-flip and ended with a catlike three-point landing. Somewhere in the process, whether more by method or madness, he moved far enough that Spider-Man's shot went over his shoulder without connecting. With some effort, Deadpool wrenched the webbing off his face, taking a lot of his mask with it.  
  
"What the hell, Spidey?" he complained. "Me and Cable were having a _moment_ there, do you mind?"  
  
"Are you kidding, that was me doing him a favour!" said Spider-Man. "Friends don't let friends fight drunk. _Or_ when it's so personal they can hardly see straight."  
  
"Aw, Cable's your _friend_ now?"  
  
Spider-Man looked back guiltily. "Considering I just left him to deal with War on his own, I don't know if he's going to see it that way..." The sentence ended a wall away from where it began; the first wall ended up far richer in lead for the meagre crime of offering Spider-Man a few seconds of support.  
  
"Okay, new rule," said Deadpool crossly, leaning down on both his triggers at once. "Spider-sense is out of bounds or I'm telling War you're not playing fair."  
  
"How do you even _say_ 'playing fair' without exploding from hypocrisy? Serious question!"  
  
"Don't suppose I could convince you I'm planning on _triple_ -crossing War any second now?"  
  
Deadpool dodged the stream of webbing before it reached him, but not all his equipment was as lucky.  
  
"Yeah," said Deadpool, trying and failing to extract his second-favourite gun from where it was now webbed to the side of a building. "I wouldn'a believed me either." 

* * *

After the third beam from Cable's gun dissipated harmlessly against War's telekinetic shield, he gave up wasting battery power. Unfortunately, weighing his other options didn't turn up anything much better.

War watched with dry amusement. " _This_ is what you're reduced to. How the mighty have fallen – I might be disappointed, had I not so long fantasised that some day I might show my prior self the _depths_ of his foolishness. For that, you'll suffice."

Captain America's shield actually made it within a foot of War's body before it halted in mid-air, but that was probably just War showing off.

"Captain, good of you to join us," said War, looking over his shoulder so that one glowing eye stared Cap right in the face, "and I must say, looking much better than when than when last we met. The sight of your mangled body at Apocalypse's feet is one I have _long_ savoured, but to claim the privilege of finishing you myself will readily surpass it."

"We came here to correct our failings in this world," Cap yelled, "not to repeat them!"

"Don't I warrant so much as the infamous Avengers' battle cry?" War laughed. "Or does that become somewhat trite when you're the last to arrive – reduced to ambushing your opponents? Come now – tell me how much I'm going to _regret_ this. _Offer_ me the chance to surrender. Or at the very least..." The shield rotated vertically in the air, blocking both of Iron Man's repulsor beams with ease, "... _verbalise_ that instruction to 'fire now' you're thinking at your comrade so very hard."

The voice distortion of Iron Man's helmet did little to muffle the sound of him screaming as every piece of armour was torn from his body, the human within tossed ragdoll-like to the ground. War turned his attention briefly to the building beyond, and the alarms coming from within shut off abruptly to the sound of metal and wire twisting in on itself. Cap and Cable could only watch in horror.

"Not so threatening without it, are we, Stark?" War crowed. "I've heard tell you built your first suit from no more than spare parts in a desert cave. Shall we see what you can do here, left to your own devices for a month? For two?"

The shield twirled again and flew – straight back at its owner. Cable moved to intercept, and succeeded only in taking the blunt of the blow to his metal arm, the clang of organic metal on vibranium alloy piercing enough to echo for miles. Cap leapt after the shield as it ricocheted away and caught it before it could land, only to feel it wrenched upwards in his grasp by an irresistible force. His grip held, but he was left dangling uselessly in mid-air, War's hold on the shield far too strong.

"Truly, words cannot express my gratitude to you all," said War, "Just as this world was becoming tiresome – its last echo of resistance crumbling beneath my heel – _here you are_. What better means could Wade have found to prove his loyalty than by handing me the Avengers? And to show my appreciation, I am going to make this _last_. I shall take the greatest of pleasure in hunting you down, one by one."

"War – _Nathan!_ " yelled Cap, and War twitched at the sound of his human name. "We all _know_ this is Apocalypse talking. Not you!"

"Well, at least you joined in for the chorus," mused War, dryly. "But the tune grows old. The debt I owe to Apocalypse is more than I can repay, but to reduce me to no more than his mouthpiece? You have no idea how far you fall from the truth."

With a frantic wrench from Cap the shield came free, both weapon and owner suddenly suspended by nothing more than air. Cap landed on his feet with little more than a grunt, and with a roar of battle he charged War, shield in hand.

"Captain," said War, holding him off at arm's length with little effort, "I had hoped your men might offer me at least a _diverting_ challenge, but the belief you can distract a psion with a frontal charge is..." War broke off, hesitating as something registered in the psychic equivalent of peripheral vision.

Thrusting Cap away from him, War moved almost too late to avoid a glowing blade that had pierced straight through his psychic shields. The weapon caught him on his right shoulder, the armour offering little resistance against it, but it barely more than grazed the skin beneath before War had caught the shaft with his other hand. Cable glared at him from across the blade, gripping the weapon double-handed, every muscle straining to move against War's influence.

War dropped his gaze to examine what he'd caught, eyebrows raising just a little as he identified it. "A new psimitar? Now that _is_ inspired. I'd go so far as to extend the compliment, had you not just used a weapon made to amplify _latent_ psionic ability..." War's voice rose to a roar even as his grip on the psimitar tightened, " _against a psion a million times your power!_ "

The entire length of the psimitar glowed, and Cable had just time to give a yell of pain before War wrenched it from his grasp altogether. He took a moment to appreciate the make of the weapon, then cast it aside. The psimitar came to rest several feet above the ground, well out of anyone's reach, and hung there.

War's grin was vicious as he approached where Cable lay, defiant but half-stunned and left trying to pick himself up on his forearms, hands raw and steaming. A half-gesture from War – not quite mimicry of grabbing an opponent by front of his shirt – took over the job for him, dragging Cable upwards. War rose with him, high enough to give himself height advantage even as Cable's feet dangled above the ground.

"Already done? What a shame," said War. "Shall I finish you myself? Or shall I call Wade over to do the honours?"

Cable twitched at the name, and his teeth ground. War smirked, pleased by the response.

"I haven't forgotten meeting _your_ Wade, you know. A shame our acquaintance was cut so short. How do you suppose he will celebrate when you do not return?"

Suspended by the front of his shirt and head thrown back, Cable could do nothing but laugh silently through clenched teeth, beyond caring what War might read from his mind – half-mad gallows-humour of the condemned.

"Really?" said War. "How _tragic_. Do you still believe it was the humanity – the _weakness_ – within him that called to you? Even now?"

And there Cable's head snapped back upright, human eye blazing almost as bright as the other.

"You have the – the _nerve_ to speak of _weakness_ when you _gave in_ to the tyrant I dedicated my life to defeating?" Cable seethed. "Was it so easy to forget – how many years have we fought? How much have we sacrificed? All for what, to become the very thing we hated most? You accuse _me_ of weakness?"

But War's grin only widened. "In the single day you've been here, hasn't it occurred to you to wonder where my _lord_ and _master_ " War spat the words, "has been? _Apocalypse is no more_."

War paused to dedicate his full attention to the reaction his pronouncement created; and Cable's eyes widened as the meaning of his words sank in.

"As I told your Captain," War went on, "I owe Apocalypse a _great_ debt – the freedom, the release, you cannot even imagine – and what better way to thank him than to demonstrate how far I have surpassed him? I succeeded where you failed, because you were not prepared to sacrifice _enough_."

Cable stared at War in disbelief. "Millions of lives," he breathed, "all to become everything you struggled against?"

"Millions were only the beginning. In thanks for this power I would gladly sacrifice as many lives as it took – starting," War gloated, raising a hand, "with _my own_."

Following War's statement several things happened in quick succession. Cable realised, to his confusion, that his feet were touching the ground again, and War was sinking, making the same realisation as Cable only moments later.

The next was the sound of a high-pitched beeping noise, as a small device which had gone on happily flashing its lights even after being thrown from Cable's lap finally found itself something to report. The noise served as little more than a wildly inappropriate backing track to the sight of _something_ the armour covering War's left arm could no longer contain beginning to writhe like a mass of snakes as the effects of the Façade Virus – at long last – took hold.

War's telepathy lasted just long enough to give him an explanation that was no comfort whatsoever.

"YOU!" he roared, the fingers of his metal hand closing around Cable's neck before his double regained the equilibrium to defend himself; but his movements were halting, the grip not nearly so strong as it would have been had motor control not been so rapidly escaping him.

Cable reacted on automatic, both hands closing on War's arm despite the pain of the burns, too shocked to decide which out of the hand or the horribly familiar tendrils of unconstrained T.O. mesh was the greater threat.

"Hey _Nate_ ," said someone neither had noticed approaching them. Both 'Nates' looked up in unison.

Deadpool had a gun in his hand, and the sweet glow of victory in his eyes.

"Wishing we'd talked about _safewords_ now?" he crowed, and emptied the entire clip of bullets into War's head.


	8. Chapter 8

Understanding of what had just happened made its way gradually through Cable's body from the top down. After a few seconds it reached as far as his legs, and he had to sit down heavily before they gave out under him. Deadpool reloaded his gun and studied War carefully for any signs that outside forces like character popularity or publishing pressures might lead to a case of not-being-totally-dead.

"You okay, Nate?" he asked, gun still trained on War's body. Behind his usual flippancy was just a trace of real concern.

"You had me worried for while there," Cable admitted.

Deadpool shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry 'bout that. Change of plan." Cable shook his head half unbelieving, and laughed silently into his metal hand.

"Do you think we should we be burning the body?" suggested Deadpool, turning back to War. "Cutting his head off? Cutting all his bits off and burning them in different places? Maybe do some genetic checks to make _really_ sure it's him and not some robot-clone-twin-thing? They could still invoke supernatural forces to bring him back whatever we do, but at least we can say we _tried_. It's the Summers-Grey family we're talking about here – you can't be _too_ careful." Wade appeared to think for a minute. "Or we could go the whole hog and lug him to the nearest nuclear testing site, but the writers would probably just take that as a cha-"

Deadpool cut off because Luke Cage's fist had just connected with his head. Spider-Man was only a second behind him, and quickly had Deadpool wrapped in enough web that he was almost spherical by the time he hit the ground.

Cable was back on his feet in an instant. "WAIT!" he hollered, stopping both of them in their tracks as sure as one of War's psychic commands.

"The hell?" Luke complained, freezing with a fist raised in mid air.

"War is _dead!_ " Cable informed them, pointing at the body both Avengers had missed in their hurry to reach Deadpool. "Furthermore, dead at _Deadpool's_ hands. He _never_ betrayed us. I'm guessing," he went on, turning to Deadpool, "what we just witnessed was no more than a performance to buy time while the virus took effect?"

"Aw, Nate, I knew you'd understand!" Deadpool practically wept. "Oh man, didn't you guys _see_ me cap War? I have my most awesomely badass moment ever, and no-one _saw?_ "

" _We_ saw," said Captain America, making his way to join them. With one arm he was supporting Tony Stark, who was leaning heavily on him, dressed only in his metallic under-suit and looking a little pale, but otherwise not too much the worse for wear.

"Cable's right," he continued. "Cage, Spider-Man, stand down."

Both the aforementioned swiftly came up with personalised varieties on the theme of relaxing while somehow coming to attention at the same time.

"And then perhaps Deadpool will explain to us all why he felt the need to deviate so far from the plan," Cap finished.

"Hey, I _had_ to!" Deadpool protested. "War called my bluff, like, the moment I showed up! I had to improvise!"

"Called your bluff?" Luke echoed.

"The part where I was going to pretend like I thought I could sneak in and kill him without being caught? Maybe you guys thought I was dumb enough to try it – "

"It was your idea," said Cable.

"Okay, maybe _I_ thought I was dumb enough to try it. But War caught me the second I got there, and the first thing out of his mouth was, 'I hope you don't expect me to believe you're dumb enough to sneak in and try to kill me,' so I was like, 'No?' and then I had to think real fast 'cause..."

"I think we get the idea," said Tony.

"It got me _laid_ , didn't it?" said Deadpool, raising the general level of awkwardness in the area back up by several notches. "I told him I was selling you all out and he bought it."

"Most of us bought it too," said Cap, dryly.

"I couldn't have him reading the _old_ plan out of your heads, could I? I had to keep you all so mad at me for turning traitor that no-one was going to think too clearly about what I was _supposed_ to be doing with War."

There was a short pause while the others digested all this.

"That made sense!" exclaimed Spider-Man, sounding faintly traumatised. "Should I be scared by how Deadpool's making sense? Wait, you mean you were telling the _truth_ about triple crossing War?"

"Kinda?" said Deadpool. "I probably would've said it anyway, but it was _mostly_ the truth."

"Well done," Cap pronounced, and if there was any strain to his sincerity you would have needed superpowers to identify it. "You've gone... _far_ above and beyond the call of duty for us today."

"Aw shucks, Cap," piped Deadpool. "Sure I was mostly just doing it for revenge, and you _did_ pull me out of his dungeon and all – well, _most_ of me, but who's counting? Just hook me up with the Olsen Twins sometime and we'll call it even."

"Wilson..."

"Oh, fine. But I have to get an honorary Avengers' Membership Badge out of this, right?"

There was yet another of those slightly-too-long pauses.

"I don't think we've got any," Tony said diplomatically.

"Geez you guys drive a hard bargain – fine, I'll settle for Web-Boy over there untying me – got this _thing_ about being tied down lately, you may be surprised to hear – plus _full_ boasting rights. For the rest of _ever_."

As Spider-Man hurried over to comply, the general mutterings among the Avengers came to the effect that while they themselves were never going to be in a hurry to admit exactly _how_ they defeated War aloud to any other party, no-one among them was going to begrudge him that.

* * *

The rest of the process of retrieving the components Cable needed to make the repairs back on Providence was pleasantly uneventful. The fight with War collectively left them with nothing worse than a few burns and bruises and one sprained ankle (Tony's, and by far the most painful part was Deadpool's insistence on making constant damsel-in-distress jokes about it until the Avengers' remaining good will towards him ran very thin). They broke camp – a job mostly consisting of figuring out which of the equipment they'd brought was still salvageable – and walked the distance to War's fortress on foot. Constructed from blackened parts of what had once been Providence and before that Greymalkin, the interior remained familiar enough to give Cable little trouble finding them what they needed. The few living servants War kept about the place made no attempt to impede them.

* * *

By the time Tony Stark was down to the second last item on his list of crucial diagnostic checks to be run on the salvaged components before they left, Cable could feel the clock counting down. The best and worst thing about teleporting home was that it could be done on a dime – not more than seconds of prep time required, but he hadn't yet figured out how he was going to say goodbye. He was still pondering when Deadpool sidled up and took the matter off his hands.

"So," Wade began, awkwardly, "this is it?"

"We've achieved everything we came here to do," Cable replied, a trifle apologetic. "We can't justify staying much longer. This is it."

Wade nodded and fidgeted a little. "So, the Wade from your world – how's he doing these days?"

It was a question Cable had been expecting ever since they arrived, so answering it was easier than it should have been. "The Wade in my world... died. A few months ago."

It didn't get him quite the response he was expecting. Wade spent several seconds watching him like he was waiting for the punchline.

"But he came back to life, right?" Wade prompted. "Who hasn't done that, like, half a dozen times? We X-Men don't take death lying down!"

"No, Wade. You – _he_ – didn't."

"But that doesn't mean he _won't_ – are you really sure? Was it one of those things where they (dumdumdum) never found the body? Maybe he's just got amnesia and he's lost up in the wastes of the Swiss Alps thinking he's a lumberjack or..."

"It wasn't like that, no."

"Oh. Well. Did you find all the bits? Even the little ones? You're sure one of them isn't, y'know, _growing back..._ "

"Wade, no," Cable was realising it had been far too early to declare that this was going to be easy – or even achievable without dredging up every last part of a memory he had no desire to relive, "the reason you died – your healing factor wasn't working."

"...but you do mean that in a 'but it could kick back in at the last second' kind of way?" Wade suggested hopefully.

The look on Cable's face shut him down.

"Oh. So, if the healing factor was on the fritz, then, uh, the cancer, it wasn't..."

"No, you made it very clear that no matter what happened, you weren't going to go that way. I tried to find a way to help you but we... weren't on the best terms, after the Civil War."

Wade's expression was one of mixed disappointment and curiosity. "So how _did_ I go?

"There was an explosion – on Providence."

"Not the one where the US..."

"No, this was well before that. You were there. I think you were trying to make a point." Cable paused. "Either that, or you got yourself caught in the blast by accident. I never found out which. The comm link cut out a few minutes too soon for me to hear the end of what you were trying to say."

"Ouch. You mean I blew myself up _again?_ That is just _so me_ it's not even funny.... Maybe a _bit_ funny."

"You did save Providence," Cable offered. "The blast would have been much worse without the difference you made. We just never knew for sure how much of that was deliberate on your part."

"At least," said Wade hopefully, "I _probably_ went out a hero?"

"In every way that mattered," Cable promised him.

"And, are you really, _really_ sure I'm not coming back?"

Cable hesitated. "There was something you said just before the comm link cut out – something about someone you were expecting to see again if the worst happened; you didn't mention a name. I don't know if that means more to you than it did to me." He'd agonised over it afterwards longer than he had any rational excuse for, going over lists of every deceased acquaintance of Wade's he could find (including certain recently deceased elderly celebrities), but had never convinced himself that anyone among those names fit the bill.

Wade showed no sign of having any better luck. "That's _weird_ , I can't think of anyone who that would be... wouldn't be him, couldn't be _him_..."

"You referred to them as a 'she', if that helps."

Wade suddenly lit up. "Wait, she as in _her?_ It would _have_ to be if he's seriously down for the count at last, but _damn_. That's not so bad. That puts a whole different spin on things if the other me's with _her_."

Wade trailed off, and Cable was just about to ask him to explain, when Wade asked, "So, you and the other me, you were never...?"

"We were never intimate." _We never got that far_.

"Shame. Not that I'm not a _little_ jealous of where he is, but that's a real waste... So basically," Wade straightened, all that fidgeting and nervousness dissolving at once, "I've got to have a shot with you, right?"

During the several seconds Cable spent staring at him while his brain kept refusing to admit it had really heard what it had just heard, Wade took the opportunity to add, " _He_ sure can't complain I'm muscling in on his territory, not where _he_ is. Lucky schmuck."

"Wade, you..."

"And you're _not_ going to tell me I can't come!" Wade snapped, stabbing a finger at Cable, "Piece of Providence gets blown up, you go find a new one no-one's using! Deadpool gets blown up, you _go find a new one_ no-one's using! I could be your whole mission objective here! And don't you even try convincing me you're from the one universe out there where you're too straight for that, because not even _my_ life sucks that hard – "

" _Wade_ ," Cable cut him off, and managed to get in a deep breath he badly needed. "After everything I put you through in this world, are you sure you want that?"

Wade gave a hunched sort of shrug. "I gave War a pretty bad rep, but it wasn't _all_ bad. Always made time to torment me, never made me share him with other prisoners, and the sex was pretty good. Ah, who am I kidding, the sex was _great_. It's just that once in a while," he went on, with some rather more emphatic hand gestures, "a guy wants to be able to say 'not tonight dear, I'm not in the mood' or 'I have a headache – y'know, from where the _back of my skull_ just grew back' or 'hey, you know what, how 'bout we _don't_ see if I bend that way?' Also, call me unreasonable, but imprisonment and torture – that's pretty much a deal breaker for me."

He gave Cable a nervous look. "I did mention the sex was good?"

"You did." Cable was fighting off a lot of distracting mental imagery.

"Anyway," said Wade, more confidently, stabbing that finger at Cable some more. "You need _someone_ around to keep an eye on you and make sure you don't go the way War did, and I am the reigning _expert_ on that stuff."

Cable stared at him, six feet of scarred muscle in only slightly torn red-and-black spandex, suddenly made tangible and – _obtainable_ , in a way he hadn't let himself see Deadpool as since he arrived here, and realised just how ridiculous every objection he'd been about to make really would truly have been.

"You make a compelling argument," he admitted through the edge of a smile.

"And I didn't even have to shoot anyone! Aren't you proud of me?"

"Any objections?" Cable said, louder, addressing the rest of the room, who had all spent the last several minutes finding things on far walls to study intently, and thinking to themselves about distracting, unrelated topics so loudly you could almost hear them doing it.

And for once, the silence was nothing but welcome.


	9. Epilogue 1

Something colourful and papery went _crunch_ under Cable's boot in the doorway to his quarters, but before he'd had the chance to investigate further, the sight of the room within had distracted him. For a split-second he was almost convinced he must have walked into the wrong room by mistake.  
  
"Hel-lo _sailor!_ "  
  
Cable took a long, bemused look around what had been until this morning among the more spartanly furnished rooms on all of Providence, now redecorated to a point that defied conventional adjectives. The presence of Wade draped... _expressively_ across his bed was probably the _least_ incongruous feature.  
  
"Wade?"  
  
"Nuh-uh, today you can call me _Wabio_ , mutant X-Man with the power of luuuurve!"  
  
Cable decided now was not the time to remind Wade about his continued lack of X-Men membership.  
  
In the two weeks that had elapsed since their return from Apocalypse's universe, Wade had spent most of his time sobbing happy tears at his reunion with his television (and renewed 24 hour access to every television program he'd ever proclaimed to hate), and getting in touch with the few friends who'd cared enough about him to come to his funeral (usually by leaping out at them wearing a white sheet and shouting 'Boo!') No further mention had been made of his stated intentions of taking 'a shot' at Cable by either party. Until now.  
  
Clearly he should have taken Wade's silence on the subject as a warning.  
  
"Are those Halloween candles?" he asked.  
  
"Yeah, I was gonna get the regular kind with scented herby stuff and what, but these ones are _way_ cooler."  
  
"I didn't think I'd ever live to see you buying Mickey Mouse merchandise."  
  
"Oh, that one – pretty lame now, but you just wait until his head's half-melted – he turns into this _awesome_ zombie-alien-tentacle-Disney thing. That's what _I_ call a Halloween candle."  
  
Cable gave the bed a long stare. "Are those really Deadpool-print silk sheets?"  
  
"I know red's traditional but if we're already doing my favourite colour scheme I thought, why not go all out?"  
  
"I'm just a little confused about all the _confetti_."  
  
"I was gonna get rose petals but this is more colourful. And crunchy! And if anyone tells you anything about some kind of explosion down in the florist district I wasn't even in the area, I swear!"  
  
"The bow must have been tricky to tie from your angle."  
  
"Not when you can dislocate both wrists!"  
  
"Though I notice you're at least still fully clothed."  
  
"Unwrapping your present's half the fun, right Nate?"  
  
There was a short, awkward silence.  
  
"I'm not being too subtle, am I?" asked Wade, body language, even through the mask, just the slightest bit nervous. "I know you come from that wacky future where stripping down in front of each other don't mean jack, so I wanted to be really sure we wouldn't be getting any messages mixed up..."  
  
"No, Wade," said Cable, smiling. "This is definitely the most effort anyone's ever made to seduce me. I'm oddly flattered."  
  
"Okay, but your tone is telling me – and I know I'm gonna wreck my whole reputation by not having a witty double-entendre to go with this – there's a 'but' coming."  
  
"But I have a teleconference with the UN scheduled in fifteen minutes."  
  
"Oh." Sprawled on the bed with posture most people would have to break something to achieve, everything about Wade still found a way to droop. "You couldn't reschedule it for later or something?"  
  
"With fifteen minutes' warning, not really."  
  
"You could tell them some horrible threat to mankind came up and you had to run off to help your fellow X-Men?"  
  
"I don't particularly like the odds that none of them will check the veracity of a story about a threat to mankind."  
  
"Well. Fifteen minutes, we could still–"  
  
"I'm going to need most of those minutes to prepare."  
  
"Oh." Wade drooped even further. "Guess not then. But if it's just a teleconference, you could do that multitasking thing with the Infonet where–"  
  
"I'm not quite up to that level of distributed concentration. You're thinking of Tony Stark again."  
  
"Better believe I wouldn't be thinking of _Tony Stark_ if we were getting naked about now."  
  
"I'm sorry, Wade. You didn't pick the best time to spring this on me."  
  
Defeated, Wade gave up on draping altogether and curled up disappointed little ball on the bed. "Okay, but Nate, if the UN-thing is just your way of letting me down gently..."  
  
"I'm free afterwards."  
  
"...then you... huh?"  
  
"You'll have to give me a few hours," Cable admitted, "international politics has a way of dragging out longer than scheduled – but after that, I've got a window free for the rest of the evening. I'm all yours."  
  
" _Really?_ "  
  
"Really."  
  
" _Really_ really? Really _seriously_ really?"  
  
"I'm serious."  
  
Wade leapt off the bed with a whoop of joy, and for a couple of seconds Cable was treated to the odd experience of being kissed _through_ Wade's Deadpool mask.  
  
As Wade went cavorting around the room, happily singing something about having a 'personal GI Jesus', Cable reflected that it was going to be a _very_ long teleconference.  
  
"Wade?"  
  
".. _.find out if you're a screamer, reach out and touch_... yes?"  
  
"I've now got nine minutes left. I'll come and find you when I'm done, alright?"  
  
"Sure thing, Nate-baby! Oh my god, you're the _best_ , Nate, wahoooooooo!"  
  
The last vowel sound trailed away into the distance as Wade leapt out of the window, and danced happily away over the rooftop. Cable shook his head with a wry smile, looked around his quarters one more time, and opened a comm link.  
  
"Irene? I'm going to need you to convey my apologies to the Argentinean trade delegation – the Avengers too. Something urgent has come up, I'm going to have to reschedule the rest of my meetings today."  
  
"X-Men urgent?" asked Irene, sounding, to her credit, not particularly surprised by the request.  
  
"Not exactly. Also, I'm going to need you to have a cleaner sent up to my quarters while I'm at the teleconference."  
  
"A cleaner? Is this related to your 'urgent' thing? Oh god, don't tell me – Wade's involved, isn't he? Wait, I don't want to know."  
  
"Probably not," replied Cable, and closed the link.


	10. Epilogue 2

Wade was waiting for him when Cable got back to his room, lounging by the doorway with a too-obvious nonchalance that as good as said, 'What, me, run all the way here? 'Course not! I was just... nearby! And not because I've been loitering around this hallway all day, nosiree.' The way he was watching Cable approach, with edge-of-his-seat fascination that suggested he was trying to decide the best moment to pounce, didn't do much for his efforts to look relaxed either. While Cable wouldn't have been wholly averse to being pounced on under the circumstances, he found himself stopping just a little beyond arm's reach.  
  
"Did you want to get something to eat first?" he offered, likely to be the one concession to tradition either of them made all night.  
  
"Uh, no," said Wade. "Sex now, food later. How about more sex after that?"  
  
After so many months of never finding the right moment to raise the subject with the old Wade, this directness was actually quite refreshing. "I can't say I'd planned that far."  
  
"I'm easy," said Wade, following him into the room. The cleaners had done a thorough job restoring his room to its natural state – with the exception of the Deadpool-print sheets, which had merely been straightened and tucked in neatly, but if Wade noticed he gave no sign of being offended. "We can do sex, sex, _then_ food, or how about..." He paused, realising Cable had stopped just inside the doorway. "Nate?"  
  
Cable turned and pulled the door shut behind them. Finally alone and free of all other commitments, he treated himself to the luxury of giving Wade the kind of slow once-over that would have been borderline inappropriate with anyone else watching. The tight fabric of his costume hid most of the scars, but only accentuated the lean muscle of the body underneath. A good look on him – and a shame he still believed that the condition of his skin marred a physique like that beyond redemption. Nevertheless, the sooner they could get the costume out of the way, the better.  
  
"Huh," said Wade, sounding a little breathless, not the least oblivious to what Cable was thinking.  
  
Cable let his smile widen, and stepped a little further into Wade's personal space. "How about we start at the top of that list. See how we go from there."  
  
"I like your plan," Wade agreed, as Cable brought both hands to his neck, resting them just at the base of his mask.  
  
"May I?" Cable asked, something he expected to be saying a lot tonight – after what Wade had been through, he couldn't be too careful.  
  
"Uhh," No matter how many times Wade had let Cable see his face before – sparring, hanging out or just to make a point, suddenly now he got nervous – like he'd just realised that cue to pounce had gone sailing past and he'd missed it, "so, uh, I was thinking maybe we could leave the mask on, or, halfway on? People tell me it's a good look on me..."  
  
"Please, Wade," Cable gathered the edge of the fabric in his fingers, not raising it without permission, but this was the one item he was going to push on. "I want to be able to look you in the eye while we do this."  
  
Wade fidgeted a bit. "Well, you put it _that_ way..."  
  
The mask came away without further resistance, revealing the face beneath centimetre by centimetre as Cable peeled it back. Scarred, yes, but not ugly by any standard Cable had any inclination to contemplate.  
  
Kissing Wade was _much_ better without it in the way.  
  
Wade kissed back with more enthusiasm than anyone else in Cable's experience – with the matter of his face resolved, shyness was no longer a word with any place in Wade's dictionary. In a trice, Cable had both of Wade's arms wrapped tightly around his neck, then one of Wade's legs hooked around his waist to go with them, pressing the full length of that warm, hard body up against his own. Another second to sort out his balance, and Wade had his second leg hooked up beside the first. The weight wasn't more than Cable could support, hands going automatically to help hold him up, but he needn't have worried – the wiry tension he could feel in Wade's thighs proved him _quite_ capable of holding himself up without assistance. He certainly had no objection to having Cable's hands suddenly all over his arse, though. The position meant Wade was now looking _down_ slightly into the kiss (which seemed an insufficient term for what might have been better described as his eager experiments to see how far he could get his tongue down Cable's throat) – quite the novel experience for someone of Cable's height. Whether the way he kept grinding against Cable was the side-effect of or the ulterior-motive behind his apparent determination to try out every possible angle he could get at Cable's mouth with his own, Cable really did not mind. Getting his hands on Wade was living up to all expectations.  
  
"So," said Wade, coyly, when he finally came up for air, "is this 'wanna look you in the eye thing' gonna extend all the way to the part when you're fucking me through the mattress?"  
  
Wade had dived for his ear before he gave Cable a chance to reply, so he missed seeing him frown. "I was going to ask if you wanted to top."  
  
"Ooooh," Wade breathed, exploring what little stubble he could find on Cable's chin with his lips, "Put me down for one of those for next time. Got my heart set on being screwed into the South Pacific today."  
  
The trouble with that much body contact was that it didn't give you any leeway to tense up even slightly without the other partner noticing. Wade leaned back, and made use of his looking-you-in-the-eye privileges.  
  
"Okay, what?" he said, not too harshly. "No _way_ are you going to tell me you don't _want_ to screw me through the mattress. I have a freaking _proctologist's certificate_ that says otherwise. I know you're not War, but you can't be _that_ different. Especially in _those_ departments."  
  
A very deliberate downward squirm to emphasise that last sentence made it momentarily harder than usual for Cable to think how to phrase a reply.  
  
"The differences are... something I feel I ought to emphasise," he managed.  
  
Wade sighed and settled his weight a little lower.  
  
"New rule," he pronounced, stabbing Cable in the chest with a finger. "If you do _anything_ I don't like, I promise to let you know using a special secret code where I say something like, ' _don't_ ' or ' _stop_ ' or maybe even ' _hey!_ '; and _if_ I do that, you'll, oh, _stop_ whatever it was you were doing. In return, you can promise not to treat me like I'm so damaged I have to be handled like a crazy old bag lady on acid with one foot hovering over the 'world goes boom' button. Deal?"  
  
"Deal," agreed Cable quickly. He swiftly revised several assumptions he'd been labouring under about how this was going to go, swung them around, took two steps across the room and tumbled Wade down on to the bed.  
  
"Whoo!" said Wade happily, as Cable's lips settled hungrily on his throat. " _Now_ you're getting the idea. Ohhhh yeah..." he added, as Cable began tracing lines of scar tissue, pleased to find no lack of sensitive spots between them, "that – you can just keep doing that and that'll be totally okay – "  
  
"I might have other ideas," Cable warned, getting his fingers under the top of Wade's costume below the neck.  
  
"Other ideas are good too!" Wade assured him, as Cable dragged the top half of his costume down to his hips. His left glove came off with it. Cable caught his other wrist in one hand and, to Wade's unambiguous approval, made a show of pulling the glove off with his teeth.  
  
 _Cinemax hand_ , an old memory supplied. Coincidentally, that had also been the first time he'd seen Wade naked, though he hadn't exactly stopped to stare at the time. Wouldn't have been fair, considering he'd had no illusions about the odds Wade would be keeping his restored appearance – not to mention other distractions. His feelings on kissing Cable had evolved quite a bit since then too.  
  
He was no stranger to what Wade looked like shirtless in his usual state either, but permission to touch was a wholly different privilege.  
  
It was hard to believe he'd ever feared there was any danger that War had beaten the fight out of him. 'Passive' was the last description Wade would ever deserve – especially in bed, as Cable was rapidly discovering. Wade was apparently clinically incapable of staying still for more than two seconds together. Anything Cable did that he enjoyed prompted a burst of happy squirming; anything he did that didn't quite hit the mark was corrected by a squirming in a more directed fashion. It probably would have gotten tiresome if every movement hadn't been a ringing tribute to how thoroughly Wade was enjoying himself, or if the squirming itself wasn't pleasant in its own way, more often than not.  
  
Wade seemed far more interested in getting his hands under Cable's shirt than he was in getting said shirt out of the way properly, but when Cable finally took over and shucked it over his head himself, Wade responded with only more enthusiasm – which meant fixing himself on Cable's metal side like it was the holy grail of intimate contact.  
  
"I'm a lot more sensitive on the other side," Cable reminded him.  
  
"But you still do _feel_ stuff with your T.O.?" Wade asked, looking up at him.  
  
"Pressure, pain, heat and cold – most sensations still come through," Cable explained, rather wishing they'd had this conversation earlier, "but everything is muted by an order of magnitude or more."  
  
"Hm..." said Wade, in a somewhat ominous tone, sliding his fingers thoughtfully down the bulges of artificial muscle that made up Cable's left arm. "So what happens if I do this?" he asked innocently, and bit down hard on Cable's metal nipple.  
  
What happened involved a lot of T.O. sensory circuits urgently finding need to report a signal significantly outside of any range they were accustomed to reporting. There may have been stars in his T.O. eye for a moment. Cable gasped, quite involuntarily, but Wade got the message loud and clear.  
  
"Heh," he grinned. "Now, the lines between the plates, those are weak points, right? So if I – "  
  
The end of Wade's sentence was lost under the noise Cable made.  
  
"I am _so_ telling Weasel about this next time he calls me a meathead for sucking with machines," Wade declared, gleefully and terrifically smug.  
  
"Don't you _dare_ ," snapped Cable. At least, someone said it. It didn't sound entirely like him.  
  
"I'm not gonna tell him _where_ the weak points are," Wade insisted. "That's privileged information – Deadpool's eyes only. You don't just give away blackmail material like that."  
  
With all Wade's squirming, Cable had missed the moment when his belt had been undone, so he had very little warning before there was a hand was in his pants – heralding the end of the fascination with his T.O. for this session, though making it momentarily difficult to come up with a suitable comeback now that now that he was experiencing all the considerable and developed talent of Wade's Cinemax hand firsthand.  
  
"Y'know..." Wade said playfully, "I think you might be _bigger_ than War."  
  
"That doesn't seem very likely."  
  
"Well, all that high tech armour, letting the T.O. go kinda feral down in some of the lower regions, that might not be healthy for a guy..."  
  
"We're going to have to make a rule about mentioning evil doubles of me in bed."  
  
"What about _non-evil_ versions of you?" Wade suggested innocently.  
  
"Not him either."  
  
"What makes you think you know which one I meant? I was talking to Forge about that time other-me went reality-hopping and..."  
  
"No mentioning any other version of me in bed. Or any of your other ex's. Or mine."  
  
"Not even 'Nessa?"  
  
" _Especially_ not Vanessa."  
  
"I bet Domino never figured out that thing with your metal bits," said Wade, back to smug again.  
  
Cable did the only thing any sane man could have done in that situation: he leaned down, kissed Wade into silence, and ground his body down against the erection that stood out plainly through the spandex of Wade's pants (nearly trapping Wade's hand between them in the process) until both of them had forgotten what started it.  
  
The first thing Wade said when they finally broke apart was, "You and me, we are wearing way too many pants. Uh... too much pants? How do you even..."  
  
Cable stopped him with another quick kiss. "Not important. Let's get rid of them."  
  
The downside of his impulsive tumble onto the bed was that Cable still had his boots on, and there was no way of getting his pants anywhere approaching 'off' without dealing with them first – and as long as he stayed crouched over Wade like this there was no way of doing that either. Reluctantly, he swung himself off the bed, while Wade shimmied out of the rest of his own uniform with considerably more ease.  
  
Wade lying naked on red and black sheets was an interesting effect – Deadpool turned inside-out, if there was a way of expressing that to sound as erotic as Cable was finding it. Even with the scars, much better than last time – now the only factor to dissuade him from staring was the need to be back on that bed and too close to see the full picture.  
  
Before discarding the full costume, Wade paused to rifle through his pouches until he found a tube of something which he brandished triumphantly.  
  
"Ha, see? I found a use for those pouches!"  
  
Lubricant, of course. Cable tried not to look too hard at the part of the label which declared which flavour it was. Knowing Wade, he was probably lucky if it wasn't rated for use on machine parts.  
  
Cable took it out of his hands as he knelt back down between eagerly spread legs. "Do you need me to use this on you, or just..."  
  
"Nuh-uh. Apply to Tab A and insert, and it'll be good with me. Moderate force can be applied if you need it. I'm sturdy."  
  
Cable quirked an eyebrow and couldn't help smirking a little, though he followed Wade's instructions, such as they were. "Romantic, aren't you?"  
  
"Used up my romance on the confetti. Do me!"  
  
Despite Wade's best efforts to ruin what little mood they had going, there was probably nothing that could have spoiled those first couple of thrusts to bury himself full-length into Wade's body – the heat, the friction – the anticipation alone had been getting thick enough to cut with a knife. The sounds Wade greeted him with seemed to agree with his experience.  
  
"Alright?" he asked, just to be on the safe side.  
  
"No," said Wade, wrapping his legs around Cable's waist in a way that implied the opposite, "cuz I still seem to be on the wrong side of this mattress. A lot more moving and _then_ I'll be 'alright'. If you wanna go for 'terrific' then... aha.... ohyeah..."  
  
Cable kept the next few thrusts as slow as he could make them, ostensibly to make the most of every nuance of the sensation, though with maybe just a little interest in seeing how much he could make Wade beg. (Borderline manipulative, perhaps, but after Wade's speech about rules, nothing that gave his conscience any trouble.)  
  
Begging wasn't precisely what he got, though the enthusiastic noises Wade was making were, for a while, just as good. Possibly even better.  
  
"Hey Nate..." Wade said after a bit, "not that this isn't great but I think ya missed the signs – we moved out of the 20 zone kind of a way back there..."  
  
Cable focused on keeping the rhythm slow and steady, wondered how far gone it meant he was if he was finding even Wade's voice a turn-on. "I don't want to rush this."  
  
"Me neither, but we can not-rush it a bit faster, if you get what I'm saying here, which is – which is – that I was pretty serious about the screw-me-down-to-the-South-Pacific part. Remember that whole 'not treating me like glass' convo we had at the start?" Wade’s legs twitched around Cable’s waist. Despite his protests, he seemed reluctant to make any move take over what he’d decided was going to be Cable’s job. Small mercies, under the circumstances.  
  
"I got the message," Cable assured him dryly. Or possibly hoarsely – it was a fine line.  
  
"Really, 'cause, from where I stand – lie – lying is good – it's feeling like maybe a bit of Chinese Whispers happened on the way. Doesn't this thing have a higher gear?"  
  
"Wade..." Mother Askani, how much longer was it going to take before he stopped being struck anew that he'd finally, truly gotten this far with Wade _every time_ he buried himself inside that body?  
  
Wade squirmed in counterpoint, trying and failing to force him to speed up.  
  
"Damnit, what's the _opposite_ of a safeword? Go! Green! Simon says: Harder! What do you, need this in writing? Do I have to get this thing signed by a lawyer? The entire cast of _Boston Legal?_ Did I ever tell you about the time War told me today's safeword was 'harder-faster-ohgod-more'? 'Cause I been saving that up ever since."  
  
" _Wade!_ "  
  
"...not bad, but let's try that again with less anger and more, ' _oh I am overcome by the power of your sexiness_ '."  
  
" _Wade_ ," Cable repeated, through gritted teeth, punctuating every point of emphasis with another thrust, "I am _trying_. _Very_ hard. To make this _last_."  
  
Wade stopped squirming and stared, eyes widening as understanding dawned. "...oh. You. _Really?_ "  
  
" _Really._ "  
  
"That's. Okay. Not what I was going for but that's not a bad consolation prize. Uh, so," Wade looked a little dazed, like he still couldn't quite get his head around it, "is it me? Or has it just, y'know, been a while?"  
  
"It's you," Cable assured him. "It's _all_ you."  
  
The noise Wade made in response started out as a 'huh' but dragged out into a groan, the legs around Cable's waist tightening.  
  
There was no keeping the floodgates back any longer.  
  
"You have _no idea_ ," Cable told him, hissing the words haltingly through gritted teeth. "How long I've wanted you. So sure I'd _wasted_ my last chance with you. So long – hunting any loophole that could mean you survived. Even if you'd hated me, better than losing it all... Never even got to apologise. Never told you..."  
  
The pace was picking up, seemingly free of any conscious intention on Cable's part. Wade took it without a word, suddenly horribly, breathtakingly focused on the man above him like he'd just realised what all the world's religious nuts had been on about. Attention from Wade was a full body activity; part of Cable wondered if anyone had ever had his full attention like this before.  
  
"Finding you – finding _War_ had you... Spent the whole time there – trying not to think about it. About having to leave you behind at the end." Cable leaned forward, as far as he could. "Didn't work. Almost kissed you after you shot him."  
  
Cable's hand was on Wade's cock now, pumping it in rhythm, though he couldn't have picked when exactly he'd reached for it. He had Wade all but writhing in ecstasy, silent intentness starting to erode under the shear physicality of it all.  
  
"That damn UN meeting. Longest one ever. Hardly remember a thing they said – couldn't stop _thinking about this_."  
  
A long moan from Wade slowed him down only for a second.  
  
"About having you at last..."  
  
" _Fuck_ , Nate, you can still 'have' me a whole lot harder if you wanna."  
  
Cable did want – gave up on words and put everything he had left into showing Wade in a way he couldn't possibly misunderstand (that anyone less than three walls away from them probably couldn't have misunderstood). Wade never stopped _moving_ , towards Cable one moment and having to be chased up the bed the next, in a manner that defied any rhythm Cable tried to set. So much for not lasting, _everything_ Wade did conspired to keep him right on the edge that was starting to feel like it might go on forever, like they'd both forgotten what happened next. Wade might have been built just for this – just for _him_.  
  
That was the last remotely coherent thought that went through Cable's mind until he discovered that 'what happened next' involved something very like the ground dropping out from under him.  
  
Coming down afterwards was a slow process, the lasting burn of exertion making him feel old and young again at once, but it was hard to care much in the wake of what might have just been the best orgasm of his life. A vivid streak of white fluid on Wade's chest was the first sign he had that he'd come so hard he'd almost missed Wade following.  
  
Wade made a noise that would be unreproducible even via copious keyboard mashing, so at least Cable wasn't the only one present in that state. Muscles moving mostly on automatic, he pulled himself out of Wade's body and lowered himself down to the bed, not quite on top of the other occupant.  
  
"I..." said Wade, sounding breathless and a little freaked out, "take back every nice thing I ever said about sex with War. Holy fuck, Nate, that was... you were... you really... Can I talk about War now? 'Cause after this I don't think I'm going to be mentioning him ever again."  
  
Cable groaned into the pillow.  
  
"I made you _babble!_ " Wade exclaimed, like he'd just discovered there was an eleven on the scale of all things hot.  
  
By all that was holy, he _had_. Wade was _sexually transmissible_ – to Cable, if no-one else, who was only now coming to realise just exactly how unhealthy all those months of making a dozen different excuses to convince himself he could live without jumping Wade's bones this very second had been for him. He must have been bottled up to bursting point. Probably very nearly still was.  
  
The upside – and a very satisfying upside it was – was that it was bound to be nothing that a _lot_ more sex with Wade wouldn't fix. And if not, he could take his time disproving it.  
  
"I just made Priscilla-the-Mutant-Messiah-of-Providence _babble!_ " Wade was saying. "I gotta get that on a t-shirt or..."  
  
Cable snagged Wade with one arm and kissed him back into silence again. Wade showed no indication he minded.  
  
"So," Wade proclaimed after he'd reclaimed his tongue once more, still looking so pleased with himself he practically glowed. "What's up next? Food or more sex?"  
  
"Food," Cable said firmly. "I... don't think I'll be up to a repeat performance for a bit."  
  
Wade snickered at him. "I'm thinking something we can get delivered?"  
  
"Knock yourself out," Cable muttered. Wade gave him one last quick snog, slithered out of bed and fished through Cable's pants until he found the mobile phone he still sometimes carried, mostly out of habit or for use in event of headaches. He was probably ordering pizza – in the nude, but as long as most businesses on Providence didn't rely on videophone, no-one would have to know.  
  
One of them would need pants on (at least) by the time the food showed up, but Cable had a feeling it wasn't going to be him.  
  
On which matter, he should probably be worried about how long it would take Irene to find out that the 'urgent' business he'd cancelled everything for involved a half-naked Deadpool ordering pizza from his room.  
  
Later, maybe. Right now, it was hard to worry about anything beyond how long it would take Wade to come back to bed.


End file.
